The prior art is replete with a variety of different computer-based email systems and related email delivery, processing, and presentation techniques. A typical email system employs a mail server or mail transfer agent (MTA) that receives email messages directed to a particular domain and routes the incoming email as needed to the intended recipient. A multi-tenant database system may also support email features and functionality for a plurality of different tenants (a “tenant” may also be referred to herein as an “organization”). The multi-tenant environment, however, can present certain challenges and difficulties that relate to the routing and re-routing of incoming email. For example, the entity that hosts or maintains a distributed database system (such as a multi-tenant database system) may have to deal with load balancing or scalability issues that require the addition of new servers, data centers, instances, and/or pods to an existing infrastructure. In such a scenario, it may be necessary to logically move an organization that had been implemented and supported by one instance of the multi-tenant database system “core” residing at a first data center to a different instance of the system core residing at a second data center. Such movement can result in a service interruption or other inconvenience for those trying to access their stored data. Moreover, such movement can also affect the transmission of incoming emails to servers, data centers, instances, and/or pods that are in a migration process. These issues are exacerbated in organizations that manage a significant volume of emails.
In certain situations, an MTA can be employed to direct or re-direct email traffic. In other situations, however, an MTA cannot be effectively utilized to re-route email traffic. For example, if a multi-tenant database system includes multiple instances of its system core distributed across a plurality of different data centers, and if the MTA has no internal knowledge of the instances that reside in a data center, then the MTA can only use domain name system (DNS) data to direct the email. As such, DNS data must be the same in every datacenter for such implementations, and an MTA in one data center cannot deliver email directly to an instance of the system core located in another data center.
Accordingly, it is desirable to have an efficient and effective methodology for re-routing an inbound email initially transmitted to one server, data center, or system core instance, particularly in the context of a multi-tenant database system. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.